Mail can only reach your e-mail address if it is 'mailed' to you!

It may appear that you are receiving other people's e-mail because spammers will enter one name in the TO: or CC: fields. However, they will send to many others by placing e-mail addresses in the BCC: field. Those addresses will receive the e-mail, but it will appear to be sent to another. (SNEAKY!)

POOF to SPOOF!  Spammers will make it appear that you are sending out certain e-mail messages because of a practice used by spammers called 'SPOOFING'.  Spoofing is disguising a message "from" address so that it appears to be from someone other than the actual sender. A favorite technique of spammers and other 'bad guys' is to 'spoof' the return e-mail address and make it look as if the mail came from someone else. Spoofing names is a big problem across the entire Internet because spammers can send out under another person's name. . . it doesn't have to be from within the users account. Hence, the confusion that alot of people have with understanding this problem.

For instance, if you receive a regular posted mail letter, you look at the return address in the top left corner of the envelope as an indicator of who and where the mail originated. However, the sender could write any name and address there; you have no assurance that the letter really is from that person and address. E-mail messages contain return addresses, too – but they can likewise can be deliberately misleading, or “spoofed.” Senders do this for various reasons, including:
The e-mail is spam and the sender doesn’t want to be subjected to anti-spam laws.
The e-mail constitutes a violation of some other law (for example, it is threatening or harassing).
The e-mail contains a virus or Trojan and the sender believes you are more likely to open it if it appears to be from someone you know.

The e-mail requests information that you might be willing to give to the person the sender is pretending to be (i.e., a sender might pose as your company’s system administrator and ask for your network password), as part of a “social engineering” attack.

The sender is attempting to cause trouble for someone by pretending to be that person (i.e., to make it look as though a political rival or personal enemy said something he/she didn’t in an e-mail message).

Is all this frustrating!  Yes! But, by being watchful and careful - you can enjoy the use of e-mail messaging